


Herc rhymes with Work

by alexanger



Series: Hatules [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Drunk Shenanigans, Established Relationship, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-24 08:11:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7500741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexanger/pseuds/alexanger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hercules recounts his hat wedding and Peggy is very emotionally invested.</p><p>Alternatively:<br/>[ANGELICA]<br/>Angelica!<br/>[PEGGY]<br/>Peggy!<br/>[ELIZA]<br/>Eliza!<br/>[COMPANY]<br/>Herc!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Herc rhymes with Work

The drawback of drinking in a bigger group is that there are more horrible, reckless drunks to supervise. The advantage is that Lafayette is quick enough to shout “not it!” and John Laurens has to take the job of regulating the evening’s shenanigans.

“That’s what you get for making me hold your hair, mon ami,” Lafayette snarks over the rim of a bottle of espresso vodka.

“Dude, fuck you,” John gripes, nursing a Coke.

The Schuyler sisters are sprawled in the fantastic four’s living room. Angelica, as always, claims the armchair, and Eliza perches on one arm of the couch, so in the scramble for sitting room, poor Peggy winds up on the floor. In a show of solidarity Herc has taken the Kahlua that John has allotted him and perched on a cushion on the floor as well.

Peggy, already well on her way to shitfaced, listens with rapt attention as Hercules describes the wedding with what Alexander likes to refer to as ‘artistic license’. “We were standing on a mountain,” Herc says. “But not, like, the top of the mountain. Like, the side of the mountain.”

“Horizonally or vertically?” Peggy asks.

“Horizontally, like a shelf. And there were tons of doves. Like, big ones. Proper doves. In white and grey and black and purple,” Herc tells her.

“Those just sound like pigeons,” Angelica offers.

Hercules glares at her. “No,” he huffs, “they’re _doves._ Doves are fancier.”

“And then what?” Peggy leans against him, all big eyes and pouty lips.

John laughs. “Dude, don’t try the flirty thing on Herc, it won’t work. Trust me on that one.”

“Cause you’re not his wife,” Eliza informs him.

“Everyone chill the fuck out, I’m telling a beautiful story.” Hercules clears his throat. “Anyway, these doves, like, flew overhead in formation -”

“Did they fly into the mountain?” Angelica asks, ever the reasonable one.

“No, cause they were horizontal. Pay attention.” Peggy shushes her.

“They flew overhead in formation, and like, my hat, okay, she wrote some _sick_ vows. And they were all in a poem. Like, poem vows, that you say out loud.”

“Like a rap,” suggests Lafayette.

“Like a sonnet,” corrects Alexander.

“Like a motherfucking poem, _listen,_ you guys!” cries Peggy.

Eliza chips in, “Alexander wrote me a poem once -”

“He wrote me one first,” John cuts in, in a dark mutter.

“What formation were the pigeons in?” asks Angelica.

“Shut _up!”_ Peggy hurls a pillow at John and smacks her sister on the leg. “Hat wedding is _still in progress!”_

“So then I wept limpid tears of joy or whatever and I fuckin said I do, and then Alexander told me I could kiss the hat and I fuckin _did_ and it was _magical.”_ Hercules pauses for a moment, for dramatic effect, and then adds, “and we’ve shared a bed every night since then -”

“And you never fucking wash the thing, and it smells like Hercules head and booze and that’s gross, dude, tell your wife to take a shower,” says John.

“Also there was a band,” Hercules continues, barrelling straight over John’s interruption. “A big magical band of woodland creatures, like fuckin deers and shit, it was wild. Playing tubas and other shit. Like, you know, instruments.”

“Who was the best man?” Peggy asks, enraptured.

“Alexander,” Herc tells her.

“I was the best man _and_ I pronounced them married,” Alex says proudly.

“Who was the maid of honour then?”

There’s silence. Herc suddenly looks grief-stricken. “My poor wife,” he says softly, and he pulls his hat off and cradles it. “You never had a maid of honour, you were lacking on your most special day -”

“Hatules, the betrayed,” Lafayette says, tearing up.

Peggy is bawling. Tears spill down her face, leaving long tracks of mascara along her cheeks. “Oh my God,” she sobs. “Oh my God.”

“Pegster -” Eliza squints. “You either need less vodka or more vodka.”

“What’s got you so choked, girl?” Angelica asks.

“Hatules didn’t have a maid of honour,” Peggy says, her breathing ragged and hitching with emotion.

“Peggy - Pegs - Pegster -” Alex is falling all over himself in excitement. “Peggy, fucking, you need to be the maid of honour.”

“Oh my God -”

“Peggy is her maid of honour,” Herc crows victoriously.

“Dude, she wasn’t at the wedding,” John says flatly.

“Fucking retcon. She skyped in,” Herc says, “I’m the wedding expert, shit, maybe a dove carried the computer overhead, Pegs is a fucking hero -”

“Pegs is the maid of honour,” Alexander insists, “and she needs a crown.”

There’s a scramble for a crown; Angelica gets out of the armchair and upturns the bowl of Doritos on the coffee table, and then places the empty bowl on Peggy’s head.

“Dude, I _just_ vacuumed,” John complains loudly, as chip debris promptly loses itself in the carpet.

“Maid of honour!” Alexander shouts. “Raise a glass!”

“Raise a glass,” the rabble echoes dutifully.

“I’d like to thank the hat,” Peggy says solemnly, “for this beautiful honour. Of being … the maid of honour. Shiiiit,” she says, stopping dead. “That’s why it’s the _maid of honour.”_

“Whoa,” Hercules says, his eyes huge.

“You’re so into this, Pegs, why are you so excited?” Eliza asks.

Peggy starts to cry again, and as she sobs she casually steals Herc’s Kahlua. “Hercules Mulligan,” she says seriously, gathering herself in order to respond as boldly as possible, “is like a sister to me.” She punctuates her declaration with a swig of Kahlua.

Hercules puts his hand over his heart and tears up. “Dude,” he says, his voice full of adoration and delight.

“Dude,” Peggy agrees, as she allows him to steal the Kahlua back.

“A brother?” John attempts to correct, but Hercules throws a Dorito at him.

“Shut up, dude, she said sister. Don’t be sexist.”

“I know what I said,” Peggy agrees.

“It’s that fuckin, that, you know, sisterly bond,” Herc continues.

“Brothers ain’t shit but sisters are for _life,”_ Peggy says.

“Motherfucker, _no one_ messes with my sister Peggy -”

“For _life,”_ she reiterates adamantly.

“Work,” Herc agrees.

Eliza, Angelica and Peggy all raise their glasses and agree, in chorus, “work.”

“You need a colour,” Eliza tells Herc.

“And a floral scent. Or fruit,” Peggy says. “Like, Angie is bananas, and Eliza is mangos, and I’m jasmine flowers.”

“Dude, I’m green.” Hercules snaps his fingers. “And I’m night time flower smell, that shit is the tightest.”

“I didn’t even say he could be a Schuyler, you guys, and I’m the oldest, which means I’m the boss,” Angelica protests.

Hercules leans over and takes one of her hands. “Angelica,” he says. “Angie. I will share my Kahlua with you if you let me be the youngest Schuyler.”

“You’re like, three years older than her,” Eliza points out.

“It’s the hierarchy, dude. I gotta start at the bottom.”

John snickers “That’s what -”

“Motherfucker _don’t,_ this is a heartfelt moment,” Alex says.

Angelica is deep in deliberation. She takes a moment to eye the bottle of Kahlua John is safeguarding.

“Give me four shots and you’re in,” she says finally.

“Deal,” Herc says.

“Half of those are coming out of what you’re allowed to drink tonight,” John says, but Hercules reaches over and plucks the bottle out of John’s hand.

“Nope. Queen Schuyler gets four shots without any kinda weird deal cause she’s the best,” Herc says.

“Knew my littlest sister would come through for me. Pour,” Angelica says, and Hercules fills her tumbler.

“Dude,” Peggy says from beneath her bowl crown. “Herc rhymes with work. This was _destiny.”_

The Schuylers, Herc included, sit in awe for a moment.

“You should be a poet,” Eliza whispers.

“Spit a verse,” Herc shouts.

“Spit a verse,” Lafayette echoes from his drunken puddle on the floor.

“Verse!” Alexander cheers.

Herc starts beat boxing. He’s decent at it when he’s sober, but drunk Herc is possibly the worst beat boxer alive. As he stumbles to keep up a decent rhythm, Peggy takes his hat and puts it on over her bowl. She gathers herself, her brow furrowed in concentration, and then holds her hands up.

“Yo,” she says, and she waits for the beat to get steady before she spits, “I’m _Peggy.”_

There’s a moment while everyone waits for more, but that appears to be it.

Herc wastes no time in high fiving her. “You’re the fucking best, dude,” he tells her.

Pegs grins. “I know,” she says proudly, giving Herc’s hat back. “You get this back but you gotta get a green one, too. We can all get hats. We’ll match.”

“Work,” says Angelica.

“Work,” says Eliza.

“Work,” agrees Hercules solemnly as he spills the Kahlua all over the carpet.

 

This time it’s John’s turn to duct tape a note to the fridge:  
_From now on all bottles are to be capped when heartfelt moments occur. I’m not cleaning a whole bottle’s worth of Kahlua off the floor_ _ever again._

_PS Herc is babysitting next time. It’s someone else’s turn for a bizarre, whimsical adventure._

**Author's Note:**

> please enjoy yet more drunk hercules mulligan. come chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


End file.
